How do combat pilots identify friendly vs enemy ground forces? Infantry seems like it would be almost impossible to discern.
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It is not the simplest thing to do and multiple times mistake has been made and the own side have been hit.
The general idea to avoid it is only attack target of opperity in a area you know no frenldy unit it like behind the frontline.
Attack close to own ground units are called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support) and what is commonly done is to have people on the ground that communicate to the air unit above to coordinate the attack and tell them were friendly and enemy unit are. A pilot that just attack what he see in a situation like this is very risky.
A simple but efficient way is colored smoke signals, your side throw smoke grenades with colored smoke and the pilot say the spot for example red and green smoke. The gound personnel confirm that is the right color and use it to tell where from it the enemy is. In unsecured radio the ground crew should nevel tell the air crew the colors because then the enemy could deploy the correct smoke too.
Today GPS cooridnate can be used to define where the enemy exactly is. Laser designator exist to that you can point to a target and bomb is guided to the reflection.
If there are a large diffrence in the level of technology on the different side infared beacons that flashes can be but on troops. Unless the enemy have night vision equipment the IR breacons are invisible but they are very clear if you have the right equpment
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